That was all. All that could be learnt for the next dreadful three hours, which must elapse before the poor wife could be by the bedside of her suffering, perhaps dying, husband.
For “send,” good Mr. Allen read “bring”; and after a waking nightmare of hurry and confusion, Marion found herself but half conscious of where she was or what she was doing, in the railway, hastening back to the home she had quitted so unwillingly but a few days before.
Baby Mary was with her, of course, torn from her cot, poor child, to be hastily enveloped in hood and cloak, and hurried away on this unexpected journey. But it was all one to her. She was really a wonderful baby for taking things coolly, and reposed, poor little soul, in calm unconsciousness of her father’s danger, or her mother’s agonising anxiety.
“ ‘Never so bad but it might have been worse,’ ” quoted Mr. Allen to himself. “It would really have been dreadful if the poor baby, as they generally do, had seen fit to scream all the way!”
Millington, dirty, smoky, unlovely Millington at last. A wretched, jolting drive, in a wretched, jolting cab, with a stupid driver who could not, or would not, read the names of the streets or the numbers of the houses; (in consequence of which the greater part of the transit from the station to Brewer Street was performed by Mr. Allen with the upper half of his stout little person—ensconced in the regulation pater-familias sea-side costume of Scotch tweed, which he had not had time to change—extended out of the cab window as far as it could reach in the direction of the driver) ending at last in a sudden halt at Mrs. Appleby’s door.
Careless of cab fare, all but forgetful of baby, Marion dashed open the little garden gate and flew to the door. It was opened before she had time to ring; Mrs. Appleby had heard them stop.
“How is he?” was all she could say.
“Very poorly, I’m afraid,” replied the land-lady. But even that was better than the worst.
Then hastened up Mr. Allen; and, leading the way into the front parlour, Mrs. Appleby related to the two new-comers the particulars of Mr. Baldwin’s seizure.
“He had not been ‘not to say well,’ since Mrs. Baldwin left,” said Mrs. Appleby. Up to Thursday, however, he had been able to go to business as usual. On that morning he had not got up, told Mrs. Appleby his head was so bad, he thought he must stay in bed. He seemed to sleep most of that day, and the landlady was in hopes by Friday morning he would be all right again. But it was not so. She felt at a loss what to do, and proposed to him to send for the doctor, or Mrs. Baldwin both of which propositions he most decidedly negatived. This morning, however, Saturday, he was so evidently worse, light-headed Mrs. Appleby fancied, that she grew frightened: and when a young man from Baxter Brothers called to ask if Mr. Baldwin were ill, she sent by him a note to the same medical man who had attended Mrs. Baldwin, and a request to some of the gentlemen at the office to telegraph to Mr. Allen at Sandbeach.